Mill/drill mod.

Jon Buescher

Well-Known Member
I bought a Mill/Drill for a very! Good price from my friend Bruce Bump. My only gripe is that it is a ROYAL PITA to change the speeds on it. Could I get a VFD for it for a reasonable price? I’ll take a few pics and add them
 
Pics as promised it took me quite a while to get the speed changed and I would love to be able to set the speed with a quick adjustment of a knob
 

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To put a VFD on it you need to change the motor to a 3 phase motor.

I don't know if you have a good 2x72 grinder yet, but this is one more good reason to have a VFD. You can use a female plug on the output of your VFD and then every machine you have can run a 3ph motor with a cord that has a male plug on it. One VFD (say 2HP) will run any motor up to 2HP. All you have to do is plug in the machine you're currently wanting to use.
 
You need to match the two motors rpm and hp. I have a similar set up to John on my disk grinder, drill press and mill drill.
Let me know if I can help you. Check out the motors, VFDs and wiring kits on my web-site.
 
You probably "should" match the motor to the VFD. That way you get the advanced protection settings that are appropriate to your setup.

However, if you match the big motor and VFD, you can usually unplug the big motor, plug in and run the small one without problems. You will not have optimized protection settings for the small motor, but we all happily plug 1/4 HP or 1/2 HP motors into wall outlets that could run 1 1/2 HP motors without worrying about it. This does not seem much different.

The most extreme example of a big VFD and small motor I have seen was at a panel builders, where a new control panel with a 600HP-plus VFD was being tested driving a 1/6 HP motor.

A VFD (and appropriate motor) conversion on a belt-drive drill will usually reduce the number of belt speed changes that you need to make, but will not eliminate them completely. Changing the belt position does not just change the speed, it changes the torque multiplication as well. When you need high torque for big holes, you will need to be in low speed/high torque and when you need high speed for little holes, you will need to be in high speed/low torque. The best you are likely to be able to do is find a speed/torque position that will do 80% of your work on the VFD speed control and live with having to move belts for the 10% of stuff at each extreme.

DC is a whole different thing. Variable Frequency Drives are only applicable to 3-phase AC motors.
 
VFDs really don't care what the motor speeds are. They simply put out a frequency. At 60hz (or 50hz, for our European friends) they will simply run the nameplate RPMs. The only real concern with RPMs and VFDs is on the two extremes of the dial. If you run slow for long periods of time, your motor can overheat since the fan is designed to cool at the motor's nameplate RPM. Too slow, and you're really not getting optimum air flow.
On the high end, I suppose you could prematurely wear out your motor bearings (or other parts of the machine that the motor is running) if they weren't designed for much higher RPMs. Heat could ultimately be a problem on this end as well.

As for running different sized motors, you can run a smaller motor on a larger VFD, but not the other way around. Depending on the VFD, you can often change jumpers or parameters to match the smaller motor if you like, though if you're swapping between machines a lot, most people won't bother, since it's a pain. You're really only sacrificing the VFD's built in protection for the motor, which under MOST normal operating conditions, shouldn't be a huge factor, especially if within, say, 1/2 a HP or so. For basic things like running a grinder or a drill/mill, you should be fine. Just be mindful if you're snagging a lot of bits, or taking really heavy cuts for long periods of time, as you could potentially overheat the motor, and it may not produce an overcurrent fault as soon as would typically be ideal.

In short, just keep an eye on the motor temps (especially a smaller motor on a larger VFD) and you should be ok. Just my $.02, YMMV.


All that said, YES, it generally IS best practice to match motor and vfd nameplates (or at VFD settings), but running a 2hp motor with a 3hp VFD won't automatically cause chaos and destruction.
 
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Can I use a 3hp vfd on a 2hp motor? I am looking at buying the KMG with a 3hp motor

Yes. A VFD rating is its MAX HP Output. It will run any motor up to that HP. As has been mentioned, the overcurrent trip settings built into the VFD will be higher than a smaller motor is rated for. In the case of a grinder that's really not a huge concern. Any serious problem like a ground in a motor will cause a massive current spike- way more than enough to trip the VFD. In the case of a mill drill, etc, if you are bogging down the motor enough to stall it then you're doing something wrong. I only say that because over loading a motor will cause current to spike but maybe not enough to trip the VFD. In short, running a motor that is 1HP less than a VFD nameplate is basically a non-issue.
 
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